Reminders
by illyrilex
Summary: Pre-RE5 One-shot: There were times when Chris would see or hear something that would randomly make the world fall down anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. UPDATED 01/2013: Heavy editing because grammar is my friend.


**'Sup, folks?**

**Apparently I get sad when I don't sleep. So does Chris. **

**As always, all characters belong to Capcom.**

**UPDATE 01/2013: Holy fucking shit, I can't believe how sloppy the initial version of this was! I decided to randomly proof it and was mortified as well as awe-struck by the fact that nobody has ever called me out for uploading something so sub par. Although I am extremely tempted to delete this, I decided to do some heavy editing in an attempt to salvage this clusterfuck (since hasty decisions can lead to ruin). I know that it's far from perfect, but I am at least hopeful that it reads a bit better now.**

**Onward~!**

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><p>Jill Valentine was dead.<p>

It was a simple, albeit harsh truth; one that he had struggled to come to terms with for some time. Over two years of rigorous physical training on top of pouring himself into work to the point where he barely had a life outside of fighting the good fight had helped Chris Redfield cope with the agonizing loss. Even though a tiny fragment of hope had lodged itself somewhere in the back of his mind, he had finally started to accept the fact that his partner was gone. It hadn't been easy – not by a long shot. There were times when Chris would see or hear something that would randomly make the world fall down anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

One time, it had been – of all things – a song about dicks in boxes: Chris knew that Jill would have absolutely loved it, and knowing that she would never be able to listen to it and laugh herself into a fit of hysterics had made it almost impossible for him to breathe. That night the Ugly Cry and a bottle of gin made a guest appearance in his living room.

On another occasion it was a blow dryer: Chris hadn't exactly made it a habit to hang out in Jill's bathroom, but the dark blue machine had always stood out against the plain countertop. When he spotted the same model on sale during a routine trip to the store, he felt as though someone had knocked the wind out of him. That afternoon his despair fueled one of the most insane workouts known to mankind.

A while later it had been a bobble hat with long braids hanging from the sides: Chris was driving to a rendezvous point when he caught sight of a child wearing the popular article of cold-weather clothing. He recalled questioning Jill's sanity as she nonchalantly strolled through the B.S.A.A.'s halls one day, wearing the same type of cap. He had raised his eyebrows and told her that she looked like a fucking dork, but she didn't care – the hat was "_comfortable_". So comfortable, in fact, that it barely left her head during the winter months. That morning, a small-time weapons dealer experienced what had become known throughout the B.S.A.A. as "The Redfield Rage."

Taking time-off was never an option. The less time Chris had to himself, the less time he had to sit and brood. As the months passed, he thought about Jill quite often, but also started to recognize that the little things were no longer bothering him the way that they used to – a fact that he was legitimately happy about. An old photograph of the pair from the days when watching zombie movies was a valid form of entertainment as opposed to a trigger for PTSD-related symptoms had momentarily stopped him in his tracks, but he had been able to take a deep breath and smile before placing it back on the desk it had fallen from. A few hours later he felt almost giddy as he shot a dopey smuggler in the knee caps.

As much as Chris hated to admit it, he was moving on with his life. Although he still felt an overwhelming amount of guilt about what happened to Jill, he knew that dwelling on a situation that couldn't be changed was pointless.

...And then he opened the box.

When Jill died, Chris's sister, Claire, had taken it upon herself to clear out their friend's newly unused apartment. After about a day and a half of rigorous packing and cleaning she showed up at Chris's door with a single carton of objects that were to go to him in the event of Jill's death. For the better part of two years the box had sat, untouched, until Chris randomly tripped over it and scattered its contents all over the floor. He groaned a few choice expletives before stooping down to clean up the mess.

The motley assortment of possessions included Jill's laptop, her S.T.A.R.S. badge, her ridiculous bobble hat, and a few other random keepsakes. Chris felt an agonizing pang for his friend that grew stronger with each item he put away. He started to close the box when he spotted one last thing that had fallen just out of reach: the reading glasses Jill had started wearing a month before their trip to the Spencer Estate. He remembered vividly how she complained when she realized that she had left them on her coffee table, and how she squinted at every bit of Intel they had gone over before and during that fateful assignment.

Chris picked up the glasses and stared at them for what felt like an obscene amount of time. He sat, rooted to the spot, as his confusion as to why Claire dumped this item into the box was suddenly replaced by a flood of pain and guilt; it was like taking a point-blank shotgun blast to the chest. Jill's last word, "NO," followed by that discordant scream as she tackled that well-coiffed son of a bitch out of that unnecessarily large window rang in his ears. Despite the time that had passed, and his best efforts to push that night out of his mind, it was a sound that he had never forgotten. His eyes burned and he couldn't breathe: the world was falling down all over again and there was nothing he could do about it.

A sudden noise brought Chris back to reality. He felt foolish as he realized that his grip on the spectacles had tightened to the point where one of the lenses had popped out of the frame. With a heavy sigh he placed the broken spectacles back in the box and briskly walked out of the room.

Maybe he hadn't moved on after all.

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><p><em>Yay, Author's Notes!<em>

_* The end of this little number takes place in January of 2009. F_or shits and giggles, I've decided that Chris has not heard the rumour about Jill being alive yet. (RE5 Chapter 2: "A while back I received some intel that my old partner was still alive…")__

_* Jill was officially declared dead on November 23rd, 2006._

_* "a song about dicks in boxes": This is a direct reference to the Lonely Island's song "Dick in a Box." The video aired as a skit on Saturday Night Live on December 16th, 2006. (See, I thought this shit out! :D) If you have never seen or heard it, YouTube is your BFF._

_* If you are unaware of the term "Ugly Cry," Urban Dictionary is your BFF._

_* The glasses weren't exactly supposed to go to Chris; they just ended up in the box._

_* If you simply cannot picture a bespectacled Jill, there is a photograph of Julia Voth (Jill's face model) wearing glasses floating around on the web. Google Images is your BFF._

_* Bobble hats are oddly awesome and seriously comfortable!_

_* So, I know that Chris supposedly "obsessed" over Jill's death and thought that she was still alive, but there are so many inconsistent quotes throughout RE5 that I simply have trouble getting behind the fact. I tried to take a more realistic approach, what with him being able to slowly come to terms with the whole thing, but also set it up so that, yeah, the whole "What if…?" does come into play. (I hope that I conveyed that properly.)_

_Well, I reckon that about covers anything. Thank you for reading! As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated! Cheers~! :D_


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